This has been an exhilarating few days. We were invited to attend the mission presidents seminar in Lima, Peru. All 23 mission presidents and wives that I work with in our area were present, along with Elder and Sister Christofferson, Bishop and Sister Edgley, Brother and Sister Clayton, and our area presidency President and Sister Nash, President and Sister Gaveret and President and Sister Pino. Our area has between 2500 and 3000 missionaries in 21 missions and 2 MTC's (CCM's) in 5 countries - Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
It was wonderful to get to meet with the mission presidents that I work with so closely over the phone and renew the friendships that we have with those whose missions we have been to and who we know and have worked with in person. (All of them in Ecuador-3, all of them in Colombia - 5, 1 in Venezuela, 1 in Bolivia, and 1 in Peru.)
I was touched by the training and the support from all of the Authorities and wives who where there. The meetings were totally in Spanish but translation was provided. I found that I could understand most of the comments by people who have learned Spanish as a second language. Elder and Sister Christofferson and Brother and Sister Clayton are all masterful in Spanish. And their Spanish is easy to listen to and easy to follow.
Darwin and I were separated for a while after we got there on Sunday while I went to the Lima Central Mission for some meetings and he went with Br. Beals to watch one of the new assistant auditors do a training. We had a welcoming dinner that night which Darwin almost missed. They got back from the Auditing training just as we were starting dessert. However, they brought out his dinner while we were finishing so he got to eat (not that either of us would have missed it, the food was wonderful and there was plenty of it).
We had wonderful Cultural Presentations from the youth of the Lima Stakes on Monday night and a Presentation of Peruvian walking horses and dancers on Tuesday night, as well as dinner on the patio of the hacienda. Below is just a few still shots. I am trying to get the video up because I have great video but I am having trouble with the editing.
I am waiting for some additional pictures from other people because my card ran out of room as we sat down to dinner. During dinner the dancers (there is a picture of us with them in the slide show below) pulled Sister Pino and Darwin out of the audiance and they got to dance with them. Darwin did a great job and had several comments from others about his fleet footedness. (He is not too sure about that, but he was a great sport and got into the swing of things. So did Sister Pino) We will put up video and more pictures when we can. You can see it on Youtube below